German Prosecutors Side With Satire, Not Turkish President

BERLIN — In the end, German prosecutors decided that a satirical poem was just that, an act of hyperbole in the name of art — not a criminal attempt to insult a foreign leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

An announcement Tuesday by state prosecutors in the western city of Mainz that they were dropping charges against Jan Böhmermann, who read aloud a profanity-laced poem about Mr. Erdogan on late-night TV in March, brought to a partial close an international dispute over freedoms of speech and artistic expression that had threatened to unravel a major diplomatic deal and drove the German comedian underground for weeks.

In a lengthy statement, prosecutors said their investigation, begun in April, had failed to turn up sufficient evidence of criminal intent on the part of Mr. Böhmermann, 35, an award-winning voice of Germany’s millennials. Instead, they determined that “it is characteristic of the art form of satire and caricature to work with exaggeration, distortion and disassociation.”

Mr. Böhmermann, who returned to the screen in May after a hiatus — albeit without further mention of Turkey, or Turkish politics — said on Twitter that he would respond to the ruling on Wednesday. His lawyer, however, criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel for initially calling his poem “deliberately offensive.”

Ms. Merkel later apologized for her first comments about the poem, calling her response “a mistake.” She nevertheless allowed the Turkish leader to pursue his legal suit against Mr. Böhmermann under a little-used 19th-century law, declaring her faith that the protections provided under Germany’s Constitution would prove themselves in the end.

The dispute over the poem earned the chancellor criticism that she was abandoning Europe’s core vales of free expression. It came only weeks after she helped orchestrate a deal between the European Union and Turkey aimed at preventing migrants and refugees from reaching Europe’s shores by boat in return for billions in aid to Turkey and other concessions.

Weeks earlier, Mr. Erdogan’s government had seized the opposition newspaper Zaman. His objection to the poem caused fears among many Germans that he was seeking to extend his repression of free speech beyond the borders of his own country.

The prosecutors upheld the argument of Mr. Böhmermann and the producer of his show, the public broadcaster ZDF, that the poem was satire. “An average, well-informed public could expect that any comments made there would involve exaggeration and hyperbole and lack in seriousness,” their statement said.

And they said Mr. Erdogan appeared to have been aware of this fact because he frequently referred to Mr. Böhmermann’s television show as a “nonsense program.”

The decision was resoundingly welcomed by journalists and widely celebrated by many Germans over social media. “This is the only correct decision,” said Frank Überall, the head of the German Journalists Association. “It makes clear that in Germany, the freedom of satire is valued above the touchiness of an autocrat.”

Thomas Bellut, director of ZDF, welcomed the decision, noting that the detailed explanation makes clear “that an exceptionally high value is placed on the freedom of art and speech in our society.”

The Mainz prosecutors’ decision not to press charges will not affect a separate legal proceeding by a state court in the northern city of Hamburg, where Mr. Erdogan is seeking an injunction against the poem. That trial is expected to begin next month.